There is disclosed in DE-A-3737924 a method of monitoring the quality of a crimped connection produced by the application of a compressive force to a crimping barrel of an electrical terminal, with a wire therein, the method comprising the steps of measuring the peak value of the crimping force and comparing the peak value with a reference value.
An effective crimped connection between the crimping barrel and the wire may not be achieved for a variety of reasons. Where the wire is an insulated wire, insulation may not have been completely stripped from the electrically conductive core of the wire or it may not have been stripped therefrom at all with the result that insulation is present, to a greater or a lesser extent, within the crimped barrel. Strands of said core may be absent from the crimped connection because they were broken off or splayed out before the crimping operation. The crimp height of a die and anvil set used in carrying out the crimping operation may have been incorrectly set having regard to the wire gauge or the terminal size, or the die or the anvil may have become worn. Although such faults may in some cases be detected by measuring the peak value of the crimping force and comparing it with a correct reference peak value, not all of these faults, especially where a plurality thereof occur simultaneously, will necessarily cause the peak value of the actual crimping force to vary to a significant extent, as explained in detail hereinafter.